We took the only ferry crossing from Stranraer, Scotland to Belfast, Northern Ireland on Sunday, October 25, 2009. It was an evening crossing, pitch dark when we left the dock. I was surprised to see how many people were on the boat, but I guess I shouldn't have been since it was the only one on that day.
In the previous posting I linked you to the Stena Line to show the route. The ship we were on was the HSS Voyager. If you go to it, you will see just how fancy and fast it was. Even at that, the seas were a bit rough and Trout was very aware of that. Fortunately, I have no motion sickness gene so walking around a slightly rolling ship was not an issue for me.
This is a map of Northern Ireland that I got through a Google Images search. You can see the location of Belfast on the east side of the country.
The ferry docked downtown, but we needed to go to Holywood. It's shown on this map, and they do pronounce it like our Hollywood. It was so late when we arrived that we took a taxi to the hotel. By then the restaurant had closed on that Sunday night, so we were glad we had a good late lunch in Glasgow and some snacks on board the boat. Of course we were also carrying some food as well. Needless to say it was not one of Trout's favorite food evenings.
We stayed at the Park Avenue Hotel. We had a very nice room for 2 nights there with a fabulous breakfast each morning.Now if you remember all the planning, the only reason we went to Northern Ireland was to visit the birthplace of Trout's Crossle race car. If anyone is expecting a big fancy factory, think again. I emailed Arnie at the Crossle Car Company several months in advance to be sure we could visit on 10/26.
Our hotel was quite close, but the taxi driver had a very difficult time finding it. It is located down a somewhat hidden road through some trees. The only way we knew we were there was that John Crossle himself was coming out of the drive (see the 3rd picture below) and told us we were in the right place.
So this is is, the "factory" where those great Formula Fords are built. John still lives in the house, but his major interest these days is restoring old tractors.
This is the house.
The factory is to the right.
This is the driveway into the place. It's address is "Rory's Wood, Old Holywood Road..."
The current manager is Arnie Black. This is Trout with him. Of course Trout wore an appropriate T-shirt. Arnie was exceedingly gracious, took lots of time with us and even took us to lunch (we insisted on paying) at a local pub. In fact the picture above was taken from the back seat of his car as we left the place.
This is not exactly what you expected, huh? This is what handmade is all about.
So we went into the larger work area and Trout and Arnie immediately zeroed in on this pretty light blue car. Don't ask me anything about any of this stuff. You have to ask Trout. I may update this posting with more detail from him later.
I honed in on the shop cat.
She's a pretty thing.
And she didn't seem the least bit intimidated by us or the activities going on around her.
After talking a bit about this car, the guys just had to open it up.
After putting it back together, we went up in the loft of the work area. There were treasures up there, too.
Trout wanted me to be sure to take a picture of all these parts for you more aggressive Crossle FF drivers.
Now back to another car.
Or two.
After the great tour of the factory, we loaded into Arnie's car and headed for the Dirty Duck to have a fine pub lunch in the downstairs part of the building. If you visit its website, be sure to check out the Independence Day photos. They are of a 4th of July celebration!After lunch, Arnie drove us to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. It seemed a little odd that there weren't any cars in the parking lot, but it was a miserable day and we just thought any cars were parked in the part of the museum across the road and through the trees.
We went in the gate and found out it was closed. I checked my printouts and it was supposed to be open on Monday. The guards contacted the curator in the main building and they opened the doors for us to talk to him. As it turned out, all the museums in Northern Ireland started closing on Mondays in October as a cost-cutting measure. It was not announced anywhere or online, so they were giving out free passes to anyone who came to be used the following day.
This was going to be my Northern Ireland thing. I just love those outdoor museums that bring old buildings from other parts of the country to recreate life as it was sometime in the past. Plus this museum also included some vehicles just for Trout.
By the time we left there after talking genealogy with the curator, the weather had worsened and the skies were darkening. Remember it was late October, so we just took a taxi back to the hotel, eased out and had a nice dinner right there.
We took the passes, but on Tuesday morning we decided to blow it off because the weather was so rainy and cold. We had a leisurely breakfast, checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the train station. That was something of an adventure because our taxi driver was married to a woman who's mother was Irish and father was from Wyoming. If I remember right, they split up and the mother moved back to Ireland with her daughter. His wife, who was born in Wyoming, was planning a big trip to go there to meet her father's side of the family, see the family graves, etc.
These were some apartments in the area. I liked the colors.
Trout had a great ice cream dessert at the Dirty Duck the day before, but I was so entranced with Arnie's stories, especially the ones about his grandfather during WWII, that I never pulled out my camera. So I had to get this picture of Trout and Ben & Jerry's at the train station. I was buying snacks to use up our British money because once we crossed into the Republic of Ireland, we were back to Euros. 
The train trip to Dublin was relatively short but somewhat eventful. More about that next time. I will say that once again, we accomplished our primary goal in going to Belfast, but I certainly could have spent more time in Northern Ireland. 
